Reaching a large staff and providing clear bi-directional communication on extremely short timelines is difficult. Organizations generally rely on text and email to transmit information and generally rely on telephones for two-way communications. Coordination between management and workers in routine and emergency situations is often haphazard and unreliable. Coordination of multiple worker responses is slow and often misreported. Information that is known in the field cannot always be provided to management reliably. Coordination between companies and/or agencies does not exist because either the company or agency may not have a good visibility of their own situation. Current solutions usually rely on email, text, or phone trees. There is no method of providing feedback from the people in the field to relay the real world situation, other than emailing or texting images. There is no method for real-time estimation of forces available for whatever issue is at hand, especially for emergency issues that develop rapidly and would benefit from a speedy change in deployment of the forces in the field.
Current systems for management of personnel in the field rely on direct contact with management, based on 1950's phone tree concepts or administrative letters and responses. Traditionally, the focus is on getting the message out. Information flow is a push from management down, with limited or no flow back up the chain of command other than through formal lines of command. There is little bi-directional communication, which is a barrier to situational awareness.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.